"How would you ever know, just by looking, which boy in all of Hogwarts is the most considerate?"
It was the first day of the Easter holidays, and Parvati was doing what she always did on mornings off — lounging in bed with Lavender, the birdsong outside the window doing nothing to soften the mild melancholy in her voice.
"It's not like the Yule Ball list," Lavender agreed. "You can't judge that by looks or popularity."
"Exactly," Parvati said, with feeling. "My Christmas dance partner was certainly not the considerate type. He danced with me once — stepped on my foot twice — didn't fetch me a drink, didn't make any effort at all — and then wandered off with Ron for the rest of the night."
"Oh, Parvati." Lavender patted her arm.
"Do you know what's funny? That night, near the rose bushes, Snape caught loads of couples and docked points — but he found one pair walking around out there completely unscathed." Parvati's voice went flat. "Harry and Ron. Taking a moonlit stroll. Of course Snape wasn't going to take points off *two boys* out for a walk."
Hermione, who had been lying in the next bed with the curtain not quite fully drawn, decided she had heard enough.
She pulled back her curtain. "Harry and Ron are perfectly normal, if that's what you're implying. I happen to know Harry has feelings for a particular girl."
"Oh, Hermione, good morning," Lavender said brightly. "So you do know who he likes."
"I couldn't say for certain about Ron — though I have it on good authority he's partial to curvy girls." Hermione thought briefly of Ginny's assessment and moved on. "Anyway, that's beside—"
"Speaking of which," Lavender interrupted, eyes bright with curiosity, "you're in remarkably good spirits this morning. You slept through the whole night without any of your usual tossing and groaning. What did you do differently yesterday?"
Hermione blinked. "I don't know what you mean."
"Something must have changed. Did you take something? Do something? Anything at all to make yourself more comfortable?"
"Nothing special." Hermione thought about it. "I had my lower back rubbed, actually. It did help."
"Touch is extraordinarily useful," Parvati said philosophically. "There are whole books about it in some traditions."
"There's science behind it too," Lavender added, in the tone of someone about to demonstrate knowledge. "Affection from someone you're close to can stimulate the release of endorphins and reduce the perception of pain. Hermione, from personal experience — do you think that holds up?"
"There's some truth to it," Hermione said, somewhat cautiously.
Lavender's eyes gleamed. "Your boyfriend was massaging your back. I knew it." She looked triumphant. "I genuinely did not expect Malfoy to be like that in private. He always looks so — you know. Cold and impossible. Are all Slytherin boys secretly like that?"
"I couldn't say. I only know one." Hermione realised, a fraction too late, that she had confirmed everything. She closed her mouth, got out of bed, and retreated to the bathroom.
The voices followed her through the door, faint and cheerful.
"This is a revelation. You really can't tell from how a boy treats his friends... Someone popular and charming might be brilliant with his mates and completely useless as a boyfriend..."
"The girl always knows best..."
Hermione, reaching for her toothbrush, permitted herself a small, private smile.
No — Parvati was not going to find the most considerate boy in all of Hogwarts. The most considerate boy in all of Hogwarts was already taken.
---
This hypothesis was confirmed when she arrived at the library.
She nearly walked straight back out again.
Their usual study corner had been transformed. A handmade wool rug in a pale sage-leaf pattern covered the floor. The armchair beside the desk had been piled with embroidered cushions and lumbar supports. An oil-waxed leather sofa — she had never seen it before and had absolutely no idea how it had got here — was arranged near the fireplace, which burned at least twice its usual brightness, and was also heavily cushioned.
On the coffee table: several large silver teapots, one of which was releasing steam and the unmistakable warm scent of ginger and brown sugar.
"Draco," she said, from the doorway. "What is all this?"
"I wasn't sure what you'd prefer, so I prepared a selection." He was standing with his hands behind his back, with the expression of someone who had rehearsed a very casual explanation. "Tea and coffee are off the list for now. You can have ginger and brown sugar, hot milk, or hot cocoa."
"Ginger and brown sugar, please." She came in slowly, feeling simultaneously touched and slightly embarrassed by the sheer thoroughness of it.
She sank into the leather sofa — it was extraordinarily comfortable — and discovered that the lumbar cushion was exactly the right height. She pulled another cushion to her lower abdomen.
"How did you know all this?" she asked, watching him pour the tea. "Last night you seemed completely lost."
"There are books on the subject, if you know where to look." He pushed the cup toward her and sat down. "Be careful, it's hot. Madam Pince was also surprisingly helpful — she recommended several titles. I must say, the enthusiasm she showed was somewhat alarming."
Hermione smiled, picturing him approaching Madam Pince's desk with his particular brand of stiff-backed dignity and asking about menstrual health books. She covered her amusement with a sip of tea.
"This is good," she said, surprised. "What's the recipe?"
"An old formula I found. Eastern in origin, I believe."
She drank the rest of it. She could feel the warmth spreading outward from the inside.
"More?" He was already reaching for the pot.
"Not yet. Thank you." She yawned into the back of her hand, embarrassed. "Sorry. I'm always so tired during—"
"Lie down. I'll give you a massage."
She hesitated — approximately two seconds — and then lay down.
She thought of what Lavender had said that morning. She wasn't entirely sure how to categorise what his hands did, scientifically speaking, but she knew it worked. She was warm all over, both in body and in something harder to name, and she settled comfortably on her side with her head in his lap like a cat who had decided this was its place.
He smiled at her — that small, quiet smile that was only ever for her — and pressed a light kiss to her forehead. Then his palm settled on her lower abdomen, warm and steady, and began to move in slow circles.
She picked up *The Tales of Beedle the Bard* and opened it.
She lasted approximately twenty minutes before the book slipped from her fingers.
His left hand caught it before it hit the floor. He set it aside, looked at her sleeping face for a long moment, and pulled the wool blanket from the sofa back over her.
She stirred in her sleep whenever his hands stopped moving — a small, dissatisfied sound — and he resumed, every time, without being asked. He smoothed the occasional furrow from her brow with one finger. He carefully removed the strands of hair that kept drifting across her face and making her nose wrinkle.
He was, he found, completely happy.
He was also, he was somewhat surprised to discover, a person who was capable of being completely happy.
When she finally settled into deeper sleep — soft, even breathing, one hand loosely gripping his leg — he reached over to the side table with his free hand and picked up *The Secrets of Cutting-Edge Dark Magic*.
He had found it tucked behind two shelves in the Restricted Section, hidden in a gap where it had no business being. Someone had gone to some trouble to conceal it.
Draco, whose instincts about concealed things had been honed by a childhood spent in the Malfoy family home, had taken it without hesitation.
He opened it to the section that had caught his attention earlier, and began to read.
By the time she woke, he had found something genuinely interesting.
---
She woke slowly, blinking up at him with the unfocused, languid expression she only ever had in the first few minutes after sleep.
"What are you reading?" She turned her head to look at the book in his hand, still warm from sleep.
"Something interesting. I think you'll want to see it." He set it aside, stroked her hair off her face, and kissed her forehead.
"Tell me something first," she said, smiling drowsily. "The night of the World Cup riots — you carried me back to the tent, didn't you?"
"Yes."
"And you kissed my forehead when you thought I was asleep."
A beat. "Yes."
"I knew it," she said, with quiet satisfaction.
He looked faintly pink. She found this entirely charming.
"When did you start liking me?" she asked. "We've never actually talked about it. You said it had been a long time — longer than I would imagine. How long?"
*How long.*
It was longer than she could know. Longer than he could explain without explaining everything, which he wasn't ready to do. He looked at her upturned face, the dreamy expression she was wearing, and weighed his options.
"If you keep looking at me like that," he said, "I'm going to want to kiss you."
She reached up and ran one fingertip along the line of his throat, watching the colour rise in his skin with great interest. "Why don't you?"
"Because—" He glanced down. "Are you still uncomfortable?"
"Much better. Very comfortable." She moved her hand from his throat to his lips, tracing the shape of them lightly. "They're perfect for kissing," she observed.
Draco removed the book from his lap, caught her wandering hand, and kissed her.
It was brief. Deliberately, infuriatingly brief — barely a touch, a graze, and then he pulled back, watching her with a mischievous expression.
She waited. He offered nothing more.
She waited longer, with growing indignation. He smiled pleasantly at her.
"That's all?" she said, incredulous.
"Is that not enough?"
She got off his lap, grabbed the wool blanket, and threw it at him. "You are *impossible*. You did that on purpose. You know exactly what—" She turned to walk away and remembered only then that she wasn't wearing her boots, and her socks were on the verge of sliding off onto the cold stone floor.
"Stop—" He was on his feet immediately, catching her arm.
"Let go—"
"You're not wearing shoes," he said, before she could shake him off, "and the marble is cold. Your feet will freeze." His voice was patient but firm. He met her glare without flinching. "You're always worried about catching a cold."
She turned her face away from him, pressing it against his neck. She was unwilling to concede, but she was also extremely aware that his neck smelled very good, which was inconvenient.
He lifted her — which she had not anticipated — and she grabbed his shoulders out of instinct, and then refused to look at him as he carried her back to the sofa and sat down with her in his lap.
"I had some of your tea," he said, wrapping the wool blanket around her lower body. "I can't risk you being uncomfortable. I genuinely wanted to kiss you properly." He kissed the top of her head. "Just not yet."
"You *silly* boy," she said, into the side of his neck. "I am telling you right now that it would be completely fine—"
"Are you inviting me to conduct an experiment?" He rubbed her lower back, the same steady circular pressure, and lightly touched his nose to hers.
She could smell Qimen black tea on his breath, faint and warm. He was telling the truth.
"I miss you," she said. "Even when I'm asleep, I miss you." She kissed him — properly this time, no teasing — just a warm, honest press of her lips, and felt him breathe in sharply.
He put his arm around her waist and closed his eyes.
The book could wait.
---
Hermione was also, in quieter moments, reading the book he'd found — and had rather a lot to say about it.
Draco had discovered, on one of the later pages, a section that covered Horcruxes in more detail than anything either of them had ever encountered. The magic of creation and, more importantly, the principles of destruction.
"None of this is new, exactly," she said, frowning at the text. "We've worked most of it out. But why would this be hidden?"
"That's the interesting question." He watched her turn the pages, enjoying the way her expression shifted with the text. "It was tucked behind two shelves, not catalogued. Someone went to trouble over it."
"Horcruxes." She let the word sit for a moment. "It's the only book in this library that mentions them with any real detail. Which means —" She turned to the library card tucked in the back, examined it, and went still. "Draco. Look at this."
He looked.
Among the borrower names, in neat, ornate script: *Tom Riddle*.
"Klein blue ink," Draco said, after a moment. "Faded, but it's definitely the right shade. And the handwriting—"
"Twelve OWLs," Hermione said. "Dumbledore mentioned it to you once. Outwardly polite, academically exceptional, universally favoured by the staff." She set the card down, thinking. "But this book doesn't mention making *multiple* Horcruxes. It describes the process once, describes the costs, and stops there."
"So where did he learn that multiple was even possible?"
"That's exactly what I'm asking." She looked up at him. "He came from a Muggle orphanage, Draco. His access to magical knowledge was exactly what mine was — the Hogwarts library, and the teachers in front of him. This book doesn't tell him what he needed to know. Someone did."
Draco felt the thought land.
"A teacher," he said. "Someone who knew the theory well enough to explain it — and who was close enough to him to be asked."
"And that teacher could tell us how many he actually made." She was sitting forward now, energy returning. "We need to know whether we've destroyed them all or not. If we can find out the number—"
"I'll ask Dumbledore," Draco said immediately. "He taught Riddle. He'll know which teachers he was closest to."
"And we should go through the library cards on every dark magic book in the Restricted Section," Hermione said, with the focus of someone who has just found the right thread to pull. "Make a list of every book Riddle borrowed. Whatever he underlined or marked—"
"I'll help you. You'd need my school board authority to access those records properly." He caught her expression. "I know. You find that irritating."
"I find the existence of a two-tier system of library access deeply irritating," she said precisely. "I am, however, pragmatic enough to use what's available."
He smiled. "There she is."
"*Stop.*" But she was already smiling back. "His annotations are in Klein blue as well — you said so. If we can match the ink to the signature, we can be certain which markings are his. His thoughts might be visible in what he chose to underline." She paused. "The mind of the most dangerous dark wizard of the century, preserved in library margins."
"Which is why I came to find it very fortunate that you're my girlfriend," Draco said, looking at her with a delight he didn't bother to conceal.
"You're only saying that because I just thought of something useful."
"I'm saying it because you're extraordinary, and I'd have said so regardless." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'll go to Dumbledore. You compile the list. We'll start tomorrow."
She leaned back against his shoulder, satisfied.
"You know," she said, "I was thinking about what you said about Harry. At the bottom of the lake."
"What about it?"
"You said he handed you the rock. That he stayed to try to help the other hostages instead of swimming straight back up."
"He did." Draco was quiet for a moment. "I'd doubted it, before. I thought — the way he was talked about, the way Dumbledore always championed him — I assumed it was performance. Narrative. I thought any Slytherin would have just taken Ron and surfaced."
"But he didn't."
"He didn't." He looked at the fireplace. "He saw me trying to cut the ropes, handed me the only useful tool available, and then went back to argue with the merpeople about the others. He wasn't even thinking about the competition at that point." He paused. "The Goblet of Fire made the right call. I think I've always known it, somewhere. I just didn't want to admit it."
"He'll be so pleased to hear you say that," Hermione said, "if you ever tell him."
"Let's not go that far," Draco said, with dignity.
She laughed, and the sound of it filled their quiet corner of the library, and he let himself simply sit with it for a moment.
*How long had he liked her?*
He still didn't have an answer that she could hear. But he had the answer, and that was enough.